My review of Friedrich Hayek's classic, The Road to Serfdom, is on-line. In it, I summarize the book's message and discuss its relevance today. One passage: In the United States today, the intellectuals' and the public's belief in freedom seems... MORE

Last week, I was at an event in Washington, D.C. with about 20 other people--politicians, economists, journalists, and think tankers. One of the economists, Greg Mankiw, made a presentation in which he discussed the reasons for increasing health expenditures as... MORE

Pinch me A few months ago, I posted about the economic freedom that allowed my wife and me to help our daughter move from San Jose to San Francisco in less than a day. I had another "pinch me; I... MORE

What do you call people who want government solutions even when those solutions don't work? In my latest article in The Freeman, I introduce the term "government fundamentalists." Here's a passage: What should we call people who seem to regard... MORE

The essence of price theory is that relative prices affect allocation and that various shifts in supply and demand, mandated or otherwise, affect relative prices. On Wednesday, I posted on the short-term auto boom that Obama's proposed fuel-economy standards, if... MORE

An Application of Intertemporal Substitution In its purest form, intertemporal substitution is substitution over time between two goods or services that are identical except for when they occur. So what I'm about to spell out isn't the purest form. At... MORE

On this blog last month, my fellow blogger Arnold Kling wrote: Then consider the Internet. For an autodidact, this is a golden age. For going to graduate school, not so much. I agree with Arnold totally on the first. When... MORE

This is another in an open-ended series on strengths and weaknesses in Paul Krugman's writing. In a 1999 review of Krugman's The Return of Depression Economics, I wrote: One of Krugman's strengths is his talent for analogies that help readers... MORE

Last week, I highlighted parts of my favorite Paul Krugman book, Pop Internationalism. Here's another of my favorite quotes from Krugman. I used it in a sidebar for the Frank Levy article, "Distribution of Income," in the first edition of... MORE

This is my last post on Russ Roberts's interview of Richard Epstein on the happiness literature. For the previous installments see here and here. 40:40. Epstein talks about insights from sociobiology, now called evolutionary psychology. He points out their finding... MORE

In today's Wall Street Journal, Todd Zywicki lays out how President Obama attacked holders of Chrysler debt. A key paragraph: The Obama administration's behavior in the Chrysler bankruptcy is a profound challenge to the rule of law. Secured creditors --... MORE

In my recent post praising Krugman's popular writing on international trade, I highlighted the following quote from one of his essays: the United States is not now and may never be as open to trade as the United Kingdom has... MORE

The discussion of the misnamed Employee Freedom of Choice Act is taking place at the local level as well as nationally. In our local newspaper, Chris Fitz wrote a pro-EFCA letter to which I responded. My response is below: "Let's... MORE

In the comments on my post on Paul Krugman's Hooverite view of wages, we had an interesting discussion of Krugman's work over the years. I'm a big fan of much of his work in the 1990s and one of the... MORE

On tonight's 20/20 on ABC, John Stossel will, yet again, throw himself into controversial issues. I think he's the most economically literate news person on any of the networks. On The O'Reilly Factor earlier this week, Bill O'Reilly interviewed Stossel... MORE

My fellow blogger Bryan has done an admirable job of laying out the problems with Paul Krugman's recent piece on wage inflexibility. I have three things to add. First, Bryan points out that "Krugman forgets that wage rigidity is the... MORE

Gerald W. Scully, a first-rate economist, has died of pancreatic cancer. Jerry authored the article on sports in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Although I chose him as the author and edited his piece, I never met Jerry. But economist... MORE

In 2004, the Chicago Skyway was leased to a private company for 99 years for more than $1.8 billion. The company has the right to toll and concession revenue and the responsibility to maintain the road. In 2006, the same... MORE

Econlog is a blog devoted to economics education. So here's a quote from a recent book. Being producers, the advisory group was more concerned with increasing production--for instance, by opening up the Arctic to more development--which would presumably increase its... MORE

I held off posting on this because I thought the press and the bloggers would be all over it. But one of the most shocking things is how little attention has been devoted to the huge increase in the federal... MORE

Today, Paul Krugman's New York Times column is one that I don't hate. I don't love it either, but it actually has some strengths as well as weaknesses. Strengths Krugman writes: Yes, limiting emissions would have its costs. As a... MORE

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